She's Leaving Home
| "She's Leaving Home" | |
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| Song |
"She's Leaving Home" is a Lennon–McCartney song, released in 1967 on The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney wrote and sang the verse and Lennon the chorus. This was one of a handful of songs of the Beatles in which the members did not play any instruments.
Background
Paul McCartney:
John and I wrote 'She's Leaving Home' together. It was my inspiration. We'd seen a story in the newspaper about a young girl who'd left home and not been found, there were a lot of those at the time, and that was enough to give us a story line. So I started to get the lyrics: she slips out and leaves a note and then the parents wake up ... It was rather poignant. I like it as a song, and when I showed it to John, he added the long sustained notes, and one of the nice things about the structure of the song is that it stays on those chords endlessly. Before that period in our song-writing we would have changed chords but it stays on the C chord. It really holds you. It's a really nice little trick and I think it worked very well. While I was showing that to John, he was doing the Greek chorus, the parents' view: 'We gave her most of our lives, we gave her everything money could buy.' I think that may have been in the runaway story, it might have been a quote from the parents. Then there's the famous little line about a man from the motor trade; people have since said that was Terry Doran, who was a friend who worked in a car showroom, but it was just fiction, like the sea captain in "Yellow Submarine", they weren't real people.[1]
The newspaper story McCartney mentioned was from the front page of the Daily Mirror, about a girl named Melanie Coe. Although McCartney made up most of the content, Coe, who was 17 at the time claims that he got most of it right. Her parents wondered why she had left... "She has everything here." In real life, Melanie did not "meet a man from the motor trade", but instead a croupier, and left in the afternoon while her parents were at work. She was found ten days later because she had let slip where her boyfriend worked.[2] When she returned home, she was pregnant and had an abortion. [3]
Coincidentally, Coe had met McCartney three years earlier when she was a contestant and prize winner on ITV's Ready Steady Go!.[4] An update on Melanie appeared in the Daily Mail in May 2008,[5] and she was interviewed about the song on the BBC programme The One Show on 24 November 2010.
Recording
The day before McCartney wanted to work on the string arrangement, he learned that George Martin was not available to do the score. He contacted Mike Leander, who did it in Martin's place. It was the first time a Beatles song was not arranged by Martin (and the only time it was done with the Beatles' consent: Phil Spector's orchestration of Let It Be was done without McCartney's knowledge). Martin was hurt by McCartney's actions, but he produced the song and conducted the string section. The harp was played by Sheila Bromberg, the first female musician to appear on a Beatles record.[6][7]
The stereo version of the song runs at a slower speed than the mono mix, and consequently is a semitone lower in pitch. This is mentioned in the booklet accompanying The Beatles in Mono CD box set, but no reason is given. A 2007 Mojo magazine article revealed the mono mix was sped up to make Paul sound younger and tighten the track.[8]
Critical reception
When discussing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, composer Ned Rorem described "She's Leaving Home" as "equal to any song that Schubert ever wrote."[9] In April 1967, McCartney visited Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in Los Angles to preview the Sargent Pepper album, playing "She's Leaving Home" on the piano for him and his wife. "We both just cried," Wilson said. "It was beautiful." [3]
Personnel
- Paul McCartney - double-tracked lead vocals
- John Lennon - double-tracked backing vocals
- Mike Leander - string arrangement
- George Martin - conductor, producer
- Erich Gruenberg - violin
- Derek Jacobs - violin
- Trevor Williams - violin
- Jose Luis García - violin
- John Underwood - viola
- Stephen Shingles - viola
- Dennis Vigay - cello
- Alan Dalziel - cello
- Gordon Pearce - double bass
- Sheila Bromberg - harp
- Personnel per Ian MacDonald[10]
Cover versions
- Harry Nilsson on his album Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967).
- Richie Havens on his album Richard P. Havens 1983 (1969).
- Euson on his album Both Sides Now (1971).
- Syreeta Wright on her album Syreeta (1972).
- Bryan Ferry on the soundtrack album to All This and World War II (1976).
- Al Jarreau on his album All Fly Home (1978).
- Mina on her album Kyrie (1980).
- Billy Bragg with Cara Tivey on the tribute album Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father (1988).
- McCoy Tyner on the tribute album (I Got No Kick Against) Modern Jazz (1995).
- Carl Doy on his album Together (2002).
- Brad Mehldau on his album Day is Done (2005).
- Cheap Trick on their album Sgt. Pepper Live (2009).
- Andy Timmons on the album Andy Timmons Band Plays Sgt. Pepper (2011).
Notes
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 316.
- ^ Turner 2010, pp. 125–127.
- ^ a b "82 - 'She's Leaving Home'". 100 Greatest Beatles Songs. Rolling Stone. Retrieved 17 June 2012.
- ^ YouTube 2009.
- ^ Hall 2009.
- ^ Martin & Hornsby 1994, pp. 207–208.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 103.
- ^ Irvin, Jim. "The Big Bang!", Mojo. March 2007.
- ^ Time 1967.
- ^ MacDonald 2005, p. 245.
References
- Hall, Zoe Dare (17 May 2008). "She's leaving home (again) ... The woman who inspired a Beatles' classic has had to quit the Spanish house she built illegally". Mail Online. London. Retrieved 26 February 2009.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help); More than one of|author=and|last=specified (help) - Hooper, Niamh (25 October 1999). "A review from the Irish Independent". Irish Independent. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
{{cite web}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised Edition ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-84413-828-3.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help); Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Martin, George; Hornsby, Jeremy (1994). All You Need Is Ears. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-11482-6.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - "The Messengers". Time. 22 September 1967. Archived from the original on 7 August 2003.
- Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - "Paul McCartney Judges Miming Contest (Ready Steady Go)". YouTube. 2009. Retrieved 9 September 2009.
- Turner, Steve (2010). A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song. New York: Harper Paperbacks. ISBN 0-06-084409-4.
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